The Mobile Era (2007-2014)
iPhone. Android. The App Store. Instagram sold to Facebook for $1B with 13 employees. The smartphone replaces 30 other devices in your pocket.
Part of Technology
38 moments in this segment.
- — iPhone Keynote. January 9, 2007. Steve Jobs unveils the iPhone at Macworld. "An iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator." Shipped June 29, 2007. The most consequential consumer product launch of the 21st century.
- — iPhone Keynote — Macworld 2007. January 9, 2007. Steve Jobs unveils the iPhone. "An iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator." The 90-minute keynote routinely voted the greatest product unveiling in tech history.
- — iPhone — "Hello" Commercial. June 2007. The "Hello" iPhone commercial: a montage of classic film/TV characters saying hello on the phone. Aired during the 79th Academy Awards.
- — Kindle Launch — Bezos on Charlie Rose. November 2007. Jeff Bezos demoing the first Kindle on Charlie Rose. "Wireless delivery in 60 seconds." The product that proved e-readers had a market.
- — GitHub Launches. April 10, 2008. Tom Preston-Werner, Chris Wanstrath, PJ Hyett launch GitHub. The default home of open-source software within five years. Microsoft acquires for $7.5B (2018).
- — First Android Phone. September 23, 2008. HTC Dream / T-Mobile G1 — the first Android phone. By 2024, 3+ billion active Android devices. The platform that ate the rest of the smartphone market.
- — HTC Dream / T-Mobile G1 Launch. September 23, 2008. T-Mobile launch event for the HTC Dream. The first Android phone; physical keyboard, trackball, side-slide form factor.
- — Airbnb Founded. August 2008. Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, Nathan Blecharczyk found Airbnb. Initially "AirBed & Breakfast" — air mattresses in their San Francisco apartment during a conference. By 2024: 4M+ hosts, 220+ countries.
- — App Store Launches. July 10, 2008. Apple announces the App Store with 500 apps. Created the entire modern mobile-software industry within two years.
- — Spotify Launches in Sweden. October 7, 2008. Daniel Ek launches Spotify in Stockholm. The first legal, ad-supported, on-demand streaming service that actually worked. By 2024: 615M users, 256M paying.
- — Tesla Roadster Launch. 2008. Tesla Roadster — the first highway-legal electric car with lithium-ion batteries and 200+ mile range. Elon Musk's personal investment that nearly bankrupted him.
- — Bitcoin Genesis Block. January 3, 2009. Satoshi Nakamoto mines Bitcoin's genesis block. The first cryptocurrency. Reaches $69,000 per coin (Nov 2021), $100,000 (Dec 2024). The financial-industry tremor of the 2010s.
- — WhatsApp Founded. February 24, 2009. Jan Koum and Brian Acton found WhatsApp. By 2014, 600M users; Facebook acquires for $19B — the largest tech acquisition of the decade. By 2024: 2 billion monthly active users.
- — Uber Founded. March 2009. Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp found UberCab. Black-car service in San Francisco; pivots to peer-to-peer (UberX) in 2012. By 2024, operates in 70+ countries; the most consequential transportation disruption since the airline industry.
- — Bitcoin Explained — Early Footage. Early-period documentary explainers of Bitcoin from 2009-2011. The community that mined Bitcoin on laptops before any exchange existed.
- — Kickstarter Launches. April 28, 2009. Kickstarter launches in NYC. Crowdfunding becomes a real category; Pebble (2012) raises $10M; Oculus VR (2012) raises $2.4M and gets acquired by Facebook for $2B.
- — Bill Gates Releases Mosquitoes at TED. February 4, 2009. Bill Gates releases mosquitoes into the TED audience during his malaria talk. "Not only poor people should experience this." Most-quoted single moment in TED history.
- — Stripe Founded. 2010. Patrick and John Collison found Stripe in Ireland, ages 22 and 19. Simplifies online payments to 7 lines of code. By 2024: $70B valuation; processes ~10% of global e-commerce.
- — iPad Keynote — 2010. January 27, 2010. Steve Jobs introduces the iPad. "A truly magical and revolutionary product." 15M units sold in year one; created the modern tablet category.
- — Instagram Launch Demo. October 6, 2010. Kevin Systrom's Instagram launch — square photos, filters, one-tap sharing. 1M users in 2 months; sold to Facebook 18 months later for $1B.
- — Uber's First Ride. Early Uber-app demo videos from 2010-2011 — when "UberCab" was just a black-car booking service. The pitch that became one of the most consequential platform shifts of the 2010s.
- — Samsung Galaxy S Launches. June 2010. Samsung Galaxy S launches — first major Android challenger to the iPhone. By 2024 Samsung has shipped 1+ billion Galaxy units; the most successful non-Apple smartphone family.
- — Siri Demo — iPhone 4S Keynote. October 4, 2011. Apple's Siri demo at the iPhone 4S keynote — first major voice-assistant baked into a consumer phone. Set the bar for Alexa, Google Assistant, and the modern voice-AI category.
- — IBM Watson vs Jeopardy Champions. February 14-16, 2011. IBM Watson beats Ken Jennings + Brad Rutter at Jeopardy. The first widely-recognised modern-AI public win.
- — Tesla Model S Launch. June 22, 2012. Tesla Model S launch event. The car that took Tesla from a Roadster boutique to the most valuable automaker in the world.
- — Oculus Rift Kickstarter Demo. August 1, 2012. Palmer Luckey's Oculus Rift Kickstarter video — duct-taped prototype on his head. Raised $2.4M; revived VR after a 20-year coma.
- — Megaupload Raid. January 19, 2012. NZ police raid Kim Dotcom's mansion at FBI request; shut down Megaupload (4% of global internet traffic at the time). The largest copyright-enforcement action in internet history.
- — Tim Berners-Lee at the Olympics. July 27, 2012. Tim Berners-Lee at the London Olympics opening ceremony: "This is for everyone." Live-tweeted from the stage. The most-watched moment in the web's public history.
- — Tinder Launches. September 2012. Tinder launches at USC. By 2023: 50M+ users in 190 countries. Reshaped human dating; the swipe gesture became a universal UI verb.
- — Doudna & Charpentier CRISPR Paper. June 2012. Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier publish the CRISPR-Cas9 paper in Science. Programmable DNA editing for any organism. Nobel Prize 2020.
- — Docker Released. March 20, 2013. Solomon Hykes releases Docker. Application containers redefine software deployment within 3 years. By 2024, Kubernetes (which depends on container patterns Docker mainstreamed) runs the majority of production cloud workloads.
- — Snowden Leaks. June 2013. Edward Snowden, NSA contractor, leaks classified documents revealing global surveillance programs to Glenn Greenwald + Laura Poitras. The single most consequential whistleblowing event in modern computing.
- — Snowden Hong Kong Interview. June 9, 2013. The Glenn Greenwald + Laura Poitras Hong Kong hotel interview with Edward Snowden, days after the first NSA leaks. The most-watched investigative-journalism video of the decade.
- — Twitch Plays Pokemon. February 2014. Twitch Plays Pokemon — 1.16M people typing inputs to control a single Game Boy emulator. The 16-day collective experiment that put Twitch on the cultural map; led to Amazon's $970M acquisition six months later.
- — Apple Watch — "One More Thing". September 9, 2014. Tim Cook ends the iPhone 6 keynote with "we have one more thing" — Apple Watch. Apple's first new product category since the iPad.
- — Tim Cook on Privacy. September 2014. Tim Cook's open letter on privacy: "Our business is not based on collecting personal data." The differentiation pitch against Google + Facebook that defined Apple's brand for the next decade.
- — Satya Nadella Becomes Microsoft CEO. February 4, 2014. Satya Nadella succeeds Steve Ballmer as Microsoft CEO. Within 5 years, Microsoft passes Apple to become world's most valuable company. The most successful tech-CEO transition of the decade.
- — Vitalik Buterin Pitches Ethereum. January 25, 2014. 19-year-old Vitalik Buterin unveils Ethereum at the Bitcoin Miami conference. "World computer." Ethereum mainnet ships July 30, 2015.
